Tomas Hirschfeld
(Reproduced by permission of the Society of Applied Spectroscopy)

The previous winners of the Hirschfeld Award are as follows:

• 1990 Charles Miller, USA
• 1991 Arnold Eilert, USA
  
• 1992 Bob Windham, USA
  
• 1993 Brian Osborne, UK
  
• 1994 Fred McClure, USA
  
• 1995 Matsuo Iwamoto, Japan
  
• 1996 Harvey Gold, USA
  
• 1997 Tomas Isaksson and Tormod Naes, Norway
  
• 1998 Yukihiro Ozaki, Japan
  
• 1999 Ian Murray, UK
  
• 2000 Heinz Siesler, Germany
  
• 2001 Tom Fearn, UK
  
• 2002 Pierre Dardenne, Belgium
  
• 2003 Woody Barton, USA
  
• 2004 Professor Graeme Batten, Australia.
  
• 2005 Professor Ana Garrido-Varo, Spain
  
• 2006 Professor Roumiana Tsenkova, Japan
  
• 2007 Dr Gerard Downey, Ireland
  
• 2008 Véronique Bellon-Maurel, France
  
• 2009 Dr Sumio Kawano, Japan
  
• 2010 Jim Reeves, USA

2010 Tomas Hirschfeld Award :

Jim Reeves received his B.S degree in Chemistry in 1970 from the University of Maryland (With Honors), his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland in 1975 and a B.S. degree in Computer Science in 1984 from the University College of the University of Maryland.

Jim has spent his entire career at the Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture and started at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in 1978 working on the composition of ruminant feedstuffs. His introduction to near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) came in 1984 when he starting working with Dr. Timothy Blosser who using NIRS for forage and silage analysis. When Dr. Blosser left a few years later, Jim took over the NIRS work and continued studies on animal feedstuffs. While physically remaining at the same location, both the name of the lab (Ruminant Nutrition Laboratory) and direction of the laboratory changed gradually over a period of 15 years from ruminant feedstuffs to ruminant wastes and eventually to more generally ruminant effects on the environment (Presently the laboratory is the Environmental Management and Byproducts Utilization Laboratory). Thus, Jim's research has moved from what the cow eats (front end) to waste production (the back end) to waste disposal (the soil). Jim is also presently part of the Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory at Beltsville.

Jim has authored or co-authored over 125 peer reviewed publications, with thesis, book chapters, etc. increasing the total to nearly 200 non-abstract publications. He was the chairman of the 8 th International Diffuse Reflectance Conference (Chambersburg, PA, 1996), is presently the North American Editor for NIR News, serves on the Editorial Boards of The Open Spectroscopy and Open Agriculture Journals and The Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, has taught courses on NIR spectroscopy in the United States, Italy, Mexico and Brazil and routinely reviews spectroscopically (near- and/or mid-infrared) oriented papers on subjects ranging from pharmaceuticals and foods to animal feeds, hydrology, grains, soils and remote sensing.

Present research interests are concentrated in three main areas: 1. the application of spectroscopy for the rapid determination of soil composition. This includes the investigation and evaluation of both different spectral ranges (visible, near-infrared and mid-infrared), sample presentation methods (diffuse reflectance, fiber-optics, etc.) and spectroscopic methodology (proximate versus remote sensing) to find the most efficient and economically method for the rapid determination of soil carbon content for carbon sequestration. 2. Chemometrics, specifically transfer of methods developed by the NIRS community using bench top spectrometers to the area of remote sensing and also the development of more rapid methods for development and automatic evaluation of calibrations. 3. The development of methods for the evaluation of feedstocks for Biochar and biofuel production at the farm level. Finally, an ongoing interest throughout Jim's carrier has been how the reference methods used in agriculture influence the spectroscopic calibrations upon which so much time is spend developing and upon which so much may depend, e.g. carbon credits for carbon sequestration as measured by remote or proximate spectroscopic methods.

2009 Tomas Hirschfeld Award :

Dr. Sumio Kawano has worked for National Food Research Institute, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Tsukuba, Japan for 33 years since April 1975. He is now the head of the Nondestructive Evaluation Laboratory and the adjunct professor for University of Tsukuba. His responsibility in the institute is to establish the quality evaluation system for various kinds of food and agricultural products by using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). During his days as the Bachelor and Master student at Kyushu University, Sumio used to work on visible spectroscopy and delay light emission. Later, after moving to NFRI in 1975, he had worked on food transportation engineering for 10 years, and those works granted him a doctor degree. In 1987, Sumio followed the step of Dr. Mutsuo Iwamoto, the Father of NIRS in Asia, by becoming the head of the Nondestructive Evaluation Laboratory. His early works was the development of the Brix-NIRS measurement system for thin and thick peel fruits. Later, his achievements have become the keystone of the well-known industrial scale Japanese NIRS sweetness sorting machine. At present, more than 2,000 units of the NIRS sweetness sorting machine are operating nation-wide. Beside the sweetness, in 1995, Sumio discovered the effect of sample temperature on the accuracy of NIR calibration and its relation to the water absorption, the hot issue in NIRS research society at present. During the beginning of the 21 st century, Sumio and his team were among the first, if not the first, to develop a system to employ a portable NIR instrument for evaluating the quality of fruit in the field. At present, Sumio is still very active. He is deeply involved as the Secretariat for both the Japan Council of NIRS (JCNIRS) and the Asian NIR Consortium. The first is very active for it is going to hold the 24 th annual meeting in Tsukuba in this November. The latter which is newly established can draw more than 150 people from 16 countries to its Symposium which will be jointly organized with the JCNIRS this coming November.

2008 Tomas Hirschfeld Award

ICNIRS and Büchi NIRS Solutions are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2008 Tomas Hirschfeld Award is Professor Véronique Bellon-Maurel.

Professor Bellon-Maurel  is currently Director of the Cemagref-SupAgro joint research laboratory entitled “Information and Technologies for Agro-processes” which employs 50 people and also holds a chair in the Faculty of Agriculture (Montpellier SupAgro), Montpellier. Véronique started to work on NIR spectroscopy in 1988 when she began work for her PhD thesis in Cemagref. Her goal then was to develop optical sensors to facilitate the measurement of quality, specifically sugar content, in intact fruit on-line. As part of this work, she studied the design and multiplexing of NIR spectrometers and gained experience in fibre optic coupling during a stay at the French nuclear energy agency. Since then, Professor Bellon-Maurel’s main interest has always been the conception and creation of innovative instruments and operation for NIR spectroscopy and imaging applications. With this focus, she has contributed to several European projects such as CAMAR (1992-1994) which studied the use of NIR spectrometry for non-destructive measurement of sugar content in several commodities, SHIVA (1994-1997) which implemented NIR spectrometry on a robot for sorting fruit, and ASTEQ (1998-2001), a concerted action about various techniques for measuring fruit quality in which NIR spectrometry and NIR imaging were studied. In 1998-2001, her group coordinated the GLOVE European project, in which the challenge was to miniaturize and integrate a NIR spectrometric device in a glove (with other sensors) to measure fruit quality. A prototype was designed and is under development with a company.  When not involved in these projects, publishing extensively or teaching, Véronique initiated the French NIR users group Heliospir (www.heliospir.fr) and has hosted many visiting NIR researchers to her laboratory.

Véronique will present her Tomas Hirschfeld Award address at the International Diffuse Reflectance Conference to be held in Chambersburg, USA next year. Congratulations from the entire NIR community Veronique!